What If: Envisioning a World Without Art

One chilly winter afternoon, I decided to get hot chocolate from the Starbucks drive-through. When I pulled up to the window, a friendly barista confirmed my order, verified the price with me, and asked me a standard friendly question about how my day was going.

I answered, “My day is great; I think it’s going to snow.”

The man looked out the window at the sky and asked how I knew something was coming. At first, I was a bit confused by the question as it seemed obvious to me that it was going to snow. I pointed to the trees near the edge of the parking lot and described how they seemed so still. I looked toward the sky and identified the misty grey color that seems to always appear before a snowstorm, and I took a deep breath in and mentioned that the air seems wet and cooler than usual.

The barista then asked if I knew a lot about weather. I said “No, but I do know a lot about art.”

What seemed to be small talk had more complex implications. Though I am by no means a meteorologist, I used the skills I learned from my arts education to observe the environment around me and used descriptive vocabulary to explain my hypothesis regarding the weather.

“I began to wonder what my life would be like without the numerous ways art enhanced every part of my day.”

What if I didn’t notice all the world’s unique colors and shapes? What if I didn’t have the words to describe a sunset or the look on a child’s face when he learns something new?

Perhaps the barista didn’t see the signs because he didn’t have the observational skills of an artist, or the ability to make connections between his surroundings and the state of the world. Maybe he didn’t have the language arts training that would help him find the vocabulary to describe what was going on around him. This is a clear display of how the arts and the sciences are intrinsically linked.

The arts help children in many other areas of study, and broaden their horizons in life in general. Supplement your child’s education with visual, language, and performing arts at Washington Cathay Future Center this school year.